Protect My Cookies From Misinformation Please

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Protect My Cookies From Misinformation Please

Walt Mossberg wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday attacking cookies and saying really nice things about the spyware software companies that remove them from your computer.

Well, every time I run his favorite spyware removal program, Webroot, it takes the Wall Street Journal's cookie off of my computer. I guess Walt doesn't care, but I do.

I said this before and I'll say it again.

I like cookies. I like the fact that web services store my login information so I don't have to remember it and type it in every time I visit a site. I like the fact that web services store information on my preferences so Amazon can recommend new music to me and MyYahoo is configured the way I want it. I even like getting more relevant advertising which is provided to me by watching my online behavior.

I don't want Webroot or any other company touching MY cookies without my explicit permission and I want them to be liable to me and the companies that put the cookies there if they do touch them without my explicit permission.

I know Walt doesn't like all of that. He's been a consistent and vocal critic of cookies. But he doesnt' speak for all of us. And unfortunately a lot of less sophisticated web users read his column and think that cookies are bad.

Wrong Walt. Cookies are good. Very good.

It's the way that bad people use them that is the issue.

Mark Naples nails it in this column at Media Post this morning (registration required).

I wish that the debate over the use of cookies that is happening within the industry (a very good debate I might add) was being properly represented in the popular media.

But I guess that's too much to ask of them.

Thank god for blogs.

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Posted July 15, 2005 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

Cookies don't kill people, people do....

Posted by: jackson | Jul 15, 2005 1:00:34 PM

I really wish there was a chain of authority for cookies, but I can't think of a way to make it work.

Much like certificates, it would be great if browsers automatically recognized and protected cookies set for legitimate purposes and cleaned out those that were not explicitly allowed to stay beyond that.

I guess the administration of the root would be a pain, though. I mean, how do you maintain a repository of legitimate cookie-setters and, if one abuses a position as a legit. cookie-setter, how does the root authority kick them out? etc. etc.

above all, I, as a user, don't want to have to think about it at all. I just want it to work.

Posted by: scott partee | Jul 15, 2005 1:21:24 PM

Apple must have put out a press release that said 'cookies are bad' (parhaps as part of their 'Windows is bad' series). If Steve Jobs says it, Walt prints it. You'd think a guy in such an elevated media post would be willing to scratch just a wee bit below the surface once in a while.

Posted by: Chris Selland | Jul 15, 2005 1:23:57 PM

Cookies would be more tolerable if the "ask for each cookie" behavior was the default (with the option to make the choice permanent). It's ugly UI, but the other option is to enforce a stricter acceptance model which is transparent, but breaks a lot of apps in the process.

As it is, cookie-acceptance is often a pain to turn on in the browsers that support it, and some don't (speaking of Apple: Safari doesn't have cookie control).

Posted by: Faisal N. Jawdat | Jul 15, 2005 2:37:55 PM

The problem of course gets worse when you use multiple machines and browsers for everything. I've gotten to the point of giving up on registration-required news as it's just too much work to retype everything in four places all the time.

delicious, however, is at least starting to bring me back to using bookmarks, as they have been useless for five or six years.

(btw. Thanks for the indeed.com links on your sidebar.)

Posted by: candice | Jul 15, 2005 2:43:27 PM

Cookies are good... but they are broken.

They don't have to store personal information in order to be useful. If companies were more careful about how they treat data, and didn't use cookies to (on occasion) store sensitive information, then Walt would have no reason to complain.

Cookies can be an amazing convenience. I certainly wouldn't give them up. But naysayers do have a point, they can be implemented poorly and put your privacy at risk--and there's no way to differentiate given how they are currently used.

Posted by: Dave! | Jul 15, 2005 3:06:54 PM

Faisal: Safari does have Cookie control, though not the "ask for every cookie" setting.

Safari has, in my mind, something even better: a setting to "Only accept cookies from sites you navigate to" (along with "accept all" and "refuse all").

That heuristic eliminates probably 95% of the most noxious cookies (the ones from ad servers which can track your movement across mulitple websites) without requiring user input at all. Because the user doesn't have to be bothered with it, the setting is much more likely to be used.

I would much rather have a 95% solution which people actually use than a 100% solution which nobody can be bothered with.

Posted by: Shivering Timber | Jul 15, 2005 3:21:28 PM

I like cookies too. But I also like to read articles more carefully than you before I attack them. The column wasn't about all cookies, just tracking cookies. It specifically praised cookies that store user prefs and login info, while condemning those that track user activities without disclosure or permission. And I also said that even such tracking cookies would be fine if they were disclosed and opt-in. So...if you disagree with me, you are really saying you are for secret tracking of user activities, not that you are for cookies in general. If that's your position, fine, but I doubt most Americans would agree with it. I never will.

Posted by: Walt Mossberg | Jul 15, 2005 6:09:46 PM

No, Walt what I am for is permission on both ends.

Permission to place a tracking cookie and permission to remove it.

If I allow cookies to be placed on my computer, the spyware removal software companies have an obligation to keep it there.

They are trampling all over my rights as badly as the spyware guys and getting a total free pass from you and lots of other journalists.

Posted by: fred | Jul 15, 2005 9:31:04 PM

Cookies are invaluable! For the people who want to be asked every time a cookie is set, you can easily set your browser to do that for you. Try it for a few minutes and see how much of a pain in the ass it is.

I use cookies on my websites to hold all kinds of parameters and settings, not just usernames, passwords and addresses.

Cookies are simple tools and like any other simple tools they can be abused. Walt Mossberg is all wet. Most cookies are used to deliver a better website experience to the end user.

Many websites need to store all kinds of information to deliver a good web experience to the user. There are only two practical ways to do this. Cookies are one way and Sessions are the other. However, lots of information does not lend itself well to sessions since it is lost when the session is lost (i.e. you close your browser). Not to mention the fact that sessions are stored on the server and increase the server load.

Cookies can be left on the browser and periodically updated without burdening the user with a decision they won't have a clue about anyway. By rejecting the cookie, all they'll find is that the website isn't working the it's supposed to.

Cookies should be a non-issue, but ridiculous privacy concerns have kept them in the media since the '90s.

If the web is going to deliver a user friendly experience the stateful data will have to be stored some place and there is no better place than the cookie.

Posted by: Marc V | Jul 16, 2005 10:43:24 AM

Sorry for calling Mossberg 'all wet'. I see his comment now. The issue just set me off a little hastily. Apologies.

Posted by: Marc V | Jul 16, 2005 10:49:49 AM

I use cookies on my websites to hold all kinds of parameters and settings, not just usernames, passwords and addresses.

Cookies are simple tools and like any other simple tools they can be abused. Walt Mossberg is all wet. Most cookies are used to deliver a better website experience to the end user.

Cookies should be a non-issue, but ridiculous privacy concerns have kept them in the media since the '90s.

If the web is going to deliver a user friendly experience the stateful data will have to be stored some place and there is no better place than the cookie.

Posted by: Marc V | Jul 16, 2005 10:51:48 AM

Hi Fred,

I agree that it's too bad the industry debate around cookies isn't more visible; but I also think it's too bad the debate is about "cookies" instead of about what I think is the real core issue: personal data. See http://www.econometa.com/archives/18 for more...

Posted by: Adam Marsh | Jul 18, 2005 1:00:10 PM

How About Some Milk With Those Cookies?

Since most eCommerce stores force me to use cookies at least they could help wash them down. The next time you go to the mall if every store you entered charged you a dollar for the right to shop and then justified it by saying, "The dollar helps me remember your name!" it would be your last visit. But that's essentially what today's eCommerce does -- they use my resources that I paid for so they can sell me something -- then package it under a vale of convenience.

Most comments such as yours are purely naive -- you simply don't understand what you know about the subject. Others are driven from myopic interests.

The risk associated with cookies far out weigh the rewards! If that mall also enabled thieves to mug you as you left or shackled you so you couldn't run you'd also eliminate your shopping. By eliminating cookies eCommerce would dramatically increase the risk and cost of those on the web with malicious intend while keeping my new computer running like new well beyond a few months.

When cookies where first invented they served a useful purpose, because they solved a problem, not convenience! Today the technology ability and infrastructure exists to achieve all cookies do from the server side. But companies, and their financiers, don't what to absorb these costs. They'd rather pass it off to unsuspecting customers and spin it as doing me a favor. How about we call it what it is -- "A cost of sales". Just as the mall pays for the lighting and security to protect me as I shop, eCommerce needs to absorb this cost because they should conduct business responsibly. And, for the privilege of doing business with me!

Posted by: Doval | Jul 28, 2005 3:43:45 PM

Just as a side note to the whole issue with tracking cookies...we should re-work Walt's analogy. Suppose while I watched TV a recorder logged everything I watched, how long I watched it, and what channel I went to directly from the channel I was on..."anonymously". What is the harm? As long as the recorder does not identify me by name and is merely gathering statistics in aggregate about a specific show or channel what is the issue? The worst expected outcome is a sitcom that performs lousy and is routinely skipped over is somehow dropped from the network! For the large majority this is how we use cookies. We take a campaign and or feature on a site that is performing poorly and improve it and or remove it based on aggregate anonymous data. The issue for discussion should be tracking cookies where personally identifiable information is collected. There is enough value in anonymous aggregate data. Understanding there is value in gathering personally identifiable information for narrowing our marketing efforts...we must ask if this information is worth losing all available data? This is really the choice...anonymize the collection and or lose the ability to collect data at all. I guess we can't have our cookie and eat it too!

Posted by: Bob Lyons | Aug 1, 2005 7:13:07 PM

please delete my cookies.

Posted by: david | Aug 22, 2005 8:34:19 AM

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